To approve amendments to the Housing Allocations Scheme for Herefordshire, following a review of the policy. The policy clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the local authority and the Registered Providers for delivering the local authority’s statutory duties in relation to the allocation of housing, including the arrangements for applying to register for social, intermediate and affordable rented housing and the process by which it is let in Herefordshire.

A contract is in place with Jacobs Enforcement Agency (JEA) for the provision of services to recover debt in respect of Traffic Management Warrants. A decision taken in November 2019 by the Chief Finance Officer approved the award of a contract for up to 5 years, from Feb 2020 – Feb 2025.

The existing contract was established for 3 years with an option to extend should the services meet the performance targets established. It has been confirmed that the targets established in the contract are met, and therefore this extension is being sought to maximise the period initially approved in November 2019

• The Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme was launched on the 14th March 2022.
• The scheme enables people living in the UK to offer accommodation in their own homes or property they own to individuals and families displaced from the Ukraine due to the war with Russia.
• Sponsors are expected to provide guests with accommodation for up to 12 months, but a minimum of six months. Thank you payments to sponsors are scheduled to end after 12 months.
• It is anticipated that sponsors will support and help guests to adapt to life in the UK.
• The number of people who can access this scheme is uncapped and is dependent on the capacity of the sponsors who come forward. Those arriving need to meet standard security checks prior to being issued with a visa.
• Councils have a number of important functions in supporting the Homes for Ukraine scheme including initial checks with sponsors, payments to sponsors and ongoing support. An operational team has been established in order to ensure that these tasks are completed.
• To date 509 guests have already arrived through the scheme to over 188 sponsors. Initial indications are that approximately 37% (188) of guests are children and young people aged under 18 years old.
• Government data indicates that Herefordshire can expect at least another 171 guests.
• The council’s school admissions team has placed over 130 Ukrainian children in schools across Herefordshire.
• Safeguarding checks for sponsors and their families are an essential element of the Homes for Ukraine process, but little is known about the families that are arriving from the Ukraine and what their needs might be. Additional capacity for Safeguarding and Early Help mean that any concerns can be dealt with efficiently and that packages of support can be put in place to support families as they integrate into life in Herefordshire.
• Translation and interpretation are essential to the integration process, enabling people from the Ukraine to access services and support whilst they learn or improve their English language skills. Translation and interpretation services can be used by a wide range of partner agencies and voluntary sector organisations to support the Ukrainian community.
• Securing long term, affordable housing solutions, is a significant challenge for Ukrainian guests currently being hosted by sponsors. The Government guidance is clear that sponsorship arrangements are for a minimum of 6 months and that ‘thank you’ payments to sponsors are available for a maximum of 12 months.
• The Council have encouraged eligible Ukrainian guests living in sponsorship arrangements to register with Home Point, Herefordshire’s choice based letting system.
• As well as advice and support, the Housing Solutions team are implementing a range of measures such as rent top ups, goodwill payments, landlord incentives and rent in advance, all of which need to be resourced.
• The Homes for Ukraine Community Integration Grant Scheme is a significant investment that has been designed to support new and existing projects that benefit Ukrainian guests and their hosts in line with Government guidance. The grant scheme is administered by the Delegated Grant Team. Applicants and projects are being supported by Talk Community.

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 introduced a new statutory framework for the delivery of support to victim-survivors of domestic abuse and their children in safe accommodation. The Act placed several duties on each tier one local authority including to:

1. Assess the need for accommodation-based domestic abuse support in their area for all victim-survivors or their children, including those who come from outside the area.
2. Develop and publish a strategy for the provision of such support to cover their locality, having regard to the needs assessment.
3. Give effect to the strategy (through commissioning / de-commissioning decisions).

The need for additional safe accommodation has been identified through the needs assessment process. This service will provide a minimum of 6 new units of safe accommodation with support. The service will work closely with the councils housing solutions team to place victim-survivors of domestic abuse into safe accommodation.

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (‘the Act’) will transform the national response to Domestic Abuse (DA), protect victim-survivors and their children, ensure they have access to safe accommodation support, and prevent offending. It places a range of Duties on statutory agencies, such as local authorities and criminal justice system. Part Four of the Act requires Herefordshire County Council and Worcestershire County Council to carry out a needs assessment and publish a Domestic Abuse strategy to include delivery of safe accommodation support to victim-survivors, in partnership with people who have lived experience of domestic abuse.

HCC and WCC are developing policies and commissioning arrangements that are co-produced with people who have lived experience of DA. The Lived Experience Project (LEAG) seeks to ensure that both Local Authorities meet the requirements of the Act, including section 401, 'Designing the needs around the victims', based on a model of co-production. Through this work, the voices of victim-survivors across Herefordshire and Worcestershire will inform strategy, commissioning, and delivery of services, improving outcomes. Local service delivery partners will also have access to a reference group of 'experts by experience'

The project has been developed in partnership with Worcestershire Public Health and will be delivered across both counties.

To vary the current contract with Action for Children to extend the delivery of Herefordshire intensive placement support service (HIPSS) for up to 12 months from 1 April 2023 up to 31 March 2024
Following a review of HIPSS undertaken in July 2022, the recommendation is to vary the current contract for a further 12 months to allow commissioning and operational colleagues to complete a full needs analysis and understand the overall therapeutic vision of the Council.

To recommend the 2023-2024 pay policy statement to Full Council for approval and publication.

To report the outcomes and recommendations of the Task and Finish Group on ‘The Impact of the Intensive Poultry Industry on Human Health and Wellbeing'. The committee is invited to consider the outcomes from the task and finish group and to decide if the report and recommendations adopted and submitted to the Cabinet.

The installation of electricity to Plot C1A and C1B forms an essential part of preparing the land for sale and development.

Plot C1B has been sold to an end occupier. They are well advanced with their building construction and hence will be requiring their connection in 8-10 weeks. However the substation connection for the designed scheme is no longer available, so we need to install an alternative scheme to supply power to Plot C1B. An alternative substation and route has been found. This does require additional work from Rock Power Connections Limited to deliver, notably a new connection across the Straight Mile. Hereford Enterprise Zone’s Utility Consultants (SMS PLC) have confirmed that the proposed route is acceptable and the costs are valid and reasonable.

To provide funding from the Household Support Fund to third party voluntary and community organisations so that vulnerable residents in Herefordshire can access help with essential household bills.

To progress a key element of the council’s transport strategy in line with the Cabinet’s decision of 24 June 2021.

LTPs are seen as the primary future tool for the DfT to encourage and support local authorities achieve new and challenging targets and ambitions for transport. LTPs are therefore set to become much more important that they perhaps have been in recent years and they will have a significant impact on the levels of funding and the types of funding that the council can receive in future.

Successive UK Governments have adopted increasingly ambitious carbon targets into law, committing to achieving net-zero by 2050. Reflecting this, the DfT stated in their 2021 Decarbonising Transport Plan, that future local transport funding will become conditional on demonstrating how emissions will be reduced across a portfolio of transport investments through LTP.

Guidance for how the Government expects local authorities to demonstrate this in their LTPs has yet to be published. However, WSP has been advising the DfT on the development of this guidance. This allows them to state with confidence, that as a minimum the guidance will be based around robustly demonstrating the likely impact of an LTP on transport emissions (do something) against the forecast impact of continuing business as usual. If Authorities wish to be seen as a top performing Authority (and noting the proposed link to future funding) they will be encouraged to investigate this in more detail.

However, a robust LTP will need to cover more than just carbon emissions. Similar to previous LTP guidance, the full process will include early stages covering an assessment of the previous LTP and determining the scope of the new LTP, the foundation stage of developing robust baseline information, determining an appropriate vision and objectives for the LTP, the core assessment stages of developing the strategy and defining the Implementation Plan and defining how monitoring and evaluation will be undertaken. Whilst carbon considerations will be central to this work, a wide range of other policy and technical issues will also need to be covered.

Taking account of the above, particularly the link to future funding, the council wishes to update its LTP and requested that WSP submit a proposal which details both the intended approach and projected fees. This has been set out as follows:

Stage 1 – After a short inception period, this will focus on providing a comprehensive baseline and carbon emissions forecast, with the forecasts including both Business as Usual and the influence of UK-wide interventions such as accelerated EV uptake. This will inform conversations with officers and Members on the scale of the challenge, the pace of change required and range of policy measures that are likely necessary to achieve net zero outcomes.

Stage 2 – This will use the information generated in Stage 1 to confirm the vision and objectives for the LTP. This will include the setting of draft targets for different aspects of the LTP which will be refined during the following stages. There is potential for this stage to include some stakeholder engagement to help define and confirm the vision and objectives and we would need to agree this with Members (it is unlikely this will be a mandatory requirement of developing the LTP but it may be seen as best practice, depending on the extent of other stakeholder engagement already undertaken to help identify and confirm these elements).

Stage 3 - This will comprise development of a long list of interventions and undertaking a high-level option appraisal to assist in sifting out the poorer performing options. This process will include carbon impact as a core part of the appraisal, along with other environmental aspects. The end of this stage will include stakeholder engagement, seeking views on the appraisal and the selection of the better performing options to be taken forward to Stage 4.

Stage 4 – This will include the appraisal of the Implementation Plan (ie interventions and policy options, including the quantified carbon impact). Once agreed, we will also develop a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan which will be used to track the implementation and success of the LTP in meeting its targets.

The LTP Guidance is expected to be published in early 2023. The agreed approach is to undertake Stage 1 before its publication, allowing the remaining stages to be progressed immediately after publication.

The appointment of WSP offers a number of distinct advantages:
• a consultant that has a working knowledge of the council since 2013;
• has understanding of current government transport ambition and policy;
• can be appointed directly through a framework and demonstrating value for money;
• been commissioned by DfT to produce the new LTP guidance;
• been commissioned by DfT to produce the new decarbonisation tool;
• early baseline analysis and preparation ahead of the release of the LTP guidance.

Beryl cited the impact of rising energy, supplier and staff costs as key drivers for the increase. To minimise the impact on users, Minute bundles will remain at the current price as will all pedal bike charges. Minute bundles provide the best value for riders and they will be promoted in-app to ensure users understand the available saving of switching away from PAYG.

The council has an existing contract in place as set out in the below decision:
Decision - Direct award of contract to payment service provider and acquiring merchant bank for processing parking pay and display credit/debit card transactions - Herefordshire Council

Suppliers in this market only have PCI compliance to use certain accredited hardware, the hardware operated by the council (ATOS terminals) on its payment machines only allow for the current Payment Service Provider (PSP) to process payments.

If the council were to change the current hardware so that another PSP can process payments, the cost of replacing the devices is far in excess of any potential saving, if any. Therefore, the most economic option for the council at this stage is to remain with the current provider, using the current devices. There is no reason why any of the current devices should be changed given that they are all in full working order and they are expected to remain so throughout this extended contract.

The government is changing how personal care is paid for from October 2023. It will introduce:
• A new £86,000 lifetime cap on the amount anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care over their lifetime; only personal client contributions will count towards the cap
• An extended means test, enabling state support for anyone with up to £100,000 of assets (current limit £23,250), and ensuring that anyone with assets under £20,000 will not have to pay anything for their care from their assets. They will still contribute towards their care from their available income.

Whilst the changes above become law in October 2023, local authorities can start to prepare by undertaking care and financial assessments from April 2023.
The introduction of these reforms impacts on system and workforce capacity requirements for local authorities. Herefordshire Council must implement system changes in line with operational guidance issued by the Department for Health and Social Care and increase its workforce and operational efficiency as required to meet additional demands for assessments and commissioning care.
It is recognised that there are opportunities for digital technology to supplement and enhance the process for conducting financial assessments and operational efficiency.
Self-service provision can speed up the assessment process and frees up financial assessment officer time to deal with more complex cases and provide customer focus.
Moving financial assessments earlier into the assessment process via a self-service model enables service users or their families to complete the form in their own time, and can inform people of any potential contributions upfront reducing stress through financial uncertainty.

Where home visits are still necessary, officers can utilise the tool to record financial assessments, reducing paper usage, and time spent scanning and indexing documents.

People eligible for help with care needs are likely to be eligible for other benefits. This product also ensures people are aware of benefits they are entitled to, giving them a direct route to apply for them via the BetterOff product that the council current uses.

The free school meal system is an important component of the support that is provided to low-income families. Providing vouchers in the school holidays for children entitled to free school meals is an extension to this support and will benefit over 4,700 children. Through this proposal, primary and secondary aged school pupils who are eligible for benefits related free school meals will receive a food voucher of £20 per week throughout the Christmas Holiday period.

Consumer prices, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), were 8.6% higher in August 2022 than a year before. The CPI is also forecast to remain above 8.6% for the remainder of 2022 into 2023, peaking at 14% in Quarter 4 2022. Low-income households spend a larger proportion than average on energy and food so will be more affected by price increases.

Herefordshire Council has received an allocation of £1,329,601.78 from the Department of Works and Pensions under the next phase of the Household Support Fund which was confirmed on 1st October 2022.The expectation is that the funding should be used primarily to support households in the most need, particularly those including children and pensioners who would otherwise struggle with energy, food and water bills as well as other essential costs. This is part of wider offer that is being developed as part of the allocation of the Household Support Fund.

By utilising the funding from government, this will have a positive impact on low income families and child poverty by minimising the debt burden on those that struggle to pay essential bills.

This report provides a brief summary update on issues previously considered by the Health, Care and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee, including responses to information requests made by the committee, updates on resolutions made by the committee, including reports and recommendations to the executive and the Executive Response and executive decision made in respect of scrutiny reports and recommendations.

1. The 7 October 2021 Cabinet Member decision identified this scheme as an important project to support investment already made in the central area which provide continuity on design and approach to the city centre public realm. This decision approved a budget of £700,000 for delivery of the scheme.
2. Value for Money - The Council has struggled to deliver all elements of the HCCI project in line with the initial programme set out by the LEP and incorporated into the delivery contract. The delays have come about as a consequence of a wide variation in scope and also a desire to ensure that the Council is seen to be “doing the right thing”. The delays to the programme, and hence delivery, were noted in the decision titled Hereford City Centre Improvements (HCCI), 7 October 2021 and the decision made to deliver the works via the Public Realm Contract (PRC). The PRC provides the Council with access to design and build resource that allows it to deliver schemes without the need to engage with other external providers. The Public Realm Concract provider, BBLP, often uses local supply chain partners to deliver works. A number of different providers were approached as a part of the estimating process for the scheme, only one provider presented a priced schedule. Had the Council decided to appoint an external consultant to design the works and prepare tender documentation then there is no guarantee that the scheme would have attracted any further interest from the supply chain, whilst the risk of non-delivery before March 23 was high. If the scheme could not be delivered then LEP funding could not be expended, this would result in default in terms of the re-negotiated contract and would leave the Council in a position where it would be expected to re-pay the LEP funding that had already been defrayed. It should also be noted that the Council has had to redesign the scheme so that it is fully LTN1/20 compliant. Whilst not a requirement of the LEP to design and build a scheme in this way, should the Council be seen by the Department for Transport to be installing non-compliant cycle infrastructure then future Active Travel Fund allocations may be adversely affected with the Council and its residents losing out in the longer term.The Project Team and Senior Responsible Officer for the HCCI project are satisfied that BBLP made all attempts to attract alternative tenders for the scheme and that, when viewed in the round of potential payback of existing grant and a likely reduction in future DfT grant that the scheme offers value for money in this instance.
3. Proposals were developed by BBLP to complete the scheme design, prepare construction information, prepare the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) and undertake statutory consultation, undertake procurement of a contractor and provide construction works.
4. This scheme is funded from the LEP Getting Building Fund Grant.
5. The total scheme cost (combining design, TRO consultation, procurement and construction) is greater than the initial £700k allocated within the original decision.
6. An increase in costs has been as a result of recently introduced Government LTN1/20 guidance. The scheme is designed to be compliant and necessitated additional safety measures and the installation of new traffic lights.
7. The road surface of St Owen St has deteriorated to an extent that it would be necessary to resurface in the coming years. A decision was taken to accelerate the resurfacing of St Owen St preventing future disruption to business. This is not part of the cycle contraflow scheme and is being funded separately through Local Transport Plan funding but is being delivered concurrently to ensure economy and efficiency.
8. The HCCI decision of 07 October 2021 identified that the elements should be delivered within the overall programme budget.
9. On 6 October 2022 a decision was taken to re-profile the HCCI budget to account for increases within some elements and underspend in others as schemes had progressed.
10. The Marches LEP have formally approved that budget re-profile and therefore the budget for St Owen St has been increased to encompass the spend outlined above.
11. Table indicating budget for St Owen St budget allocation agreed in RoOD of 6 October 2022:

original budget £700,000.00
additional match £37,536.10
additional grant £186,398.63
additional LTP contribution £250,000.00
Total NEW budget £1,173,934.73

12. Table indicating total spend on scheme:

Design, TRO (including consultation etc) and Procurement £96,276.81
Construction £1,002,369.47
Contingency £75,288.45
TOTAL £1,173,934.73

1) The council entered into a grant agreement with the Marches LEP on 15 December 2020 and varied on 20 December 2021 to jointly fund a package of improvement works throughout Hereford City Centre. This scheme of works must be completed by 31 March 2024.
2) The report for the Cabinet Member decision of 7 October 2021 set out that this work will be commissioned through the Balfour Beatty Living Places public realm contract. This procurement route has been identified to achieve the timescales and utilising continuity of knowledge through the works and schemes that BBLP have already provided.
3) It was noted in the above report that the budgets were high level and that there was significant risk that these would vary.
4) The existing Widemarsh St design scheme completed in 2011 has been subject to a number of specialist technical design and safety reviews. All have concluded that the scheme is fully in line with design guidance and best practice.
5) The 7 October 2021 Cabinet Member decision set out the HCCI programme with a budget to enhance Widemarsh St, in recognition that some members of the public continue to experience difficulties in traversing the street despite the scheme compliance.
6) A wide variety of options for improving the street have been explored and discounted.
7) The key factors to consider were:
• The visual impact of the street
• The ease of use for pedestrians in terms of the pavement
• Safety of pedestrians regarding the use of the street by vehicles
• Cost
• Drainage
8) Taking all of these factors into account the recommended option is a full lift of the road surface to remove the 50mm upstand with replacement of the kerb and provision of a linear drainage system.
9) The estimated total budget envelope for the scheme design and construction/delivery is £1.3m. This will include full design including any additional surveying, drainage modelling etc and the construction including the lifting of 690m² road surface, incorporating new porphyry sets, replacement of kerbing, provision of drainage, traffic management, communications and contingency. It is estimated that the construction works will be an approximately 16 week programme.
10) It should be noted that the use of new porphyry sets is more cost efficient that lifting the existing sets, cleaning off of mortar and relaying. The old sets will be recycled.
11) The re-profile of HCCI budgets as set out in the Record of Officer Decision dated 6 October 2022 increased the initial provisionally estimated budget to account for the anticipated spend required for this Cabinet supported scheme. ie there is sufficient capital budget to carry out this scheme within the HCCI package of works.

1) The 7 October 2021 Cabinet Member decision (see above) set out the outline budgets for the Hereford City Centre Improvements.
2) Within the above decision it set out clearly the budgets as they were very high level due to the limited time to develop the elements.
3) As the schemes have reached detailed design stage a number of budget pressures have been identified. A number of elements of the HCCI programme have also identified savings.
4) The purpose of this decision is to re-profile the HCCI budgets and align the funding where it is required ensuring that the LEP grant spend for 22/23 is capable of being achieved as previously agreed. This does not change the overall project budget of £6m, it varies the spend on some elements within the programme of works.
5) The matter was discussed at Cabinet Briefing of 14 July 2022. Cabinet members agreed to the principles of the budget movements designed to achieve the aims of the Cabinet Member and wider Cabinet.
6) The realigned budgets are set out in appendix 1.
7) City Greening budget is reduced by nearly £65k however, the scheme can be adjusted by reducing the scope accordingly.
8) Hostile Vehicle Mitigation budget is reduced by £288k but is mitigated by the consideration that there is low risk and existing streetscape items can be utilised to achieve the desired effect of speed reduction.
9) Both planter schemes and the Market & Event Infrastructure have completed and commitments met, budget is reduced to match the spend incurred to deliver the project.
10) The total scheme budget for St Owen St is increased by to take into account additional construction costs from the initial scheme ie upgrading the scheme to be LTN1/20 compliant, replacing the Bath St junction traffic signals
11) Resurfacing of St Owen St is separate to the cycle contraflow scheme and is being carried out coincidentally to prevent the need to carry out further maintenance works and disrupt business in the coming years. Without this additional funding, the deteriorating street would require resurfacing in the next 5-10 years.
12) The total scheme budget for Widemarsh St is increased by £594.5k in line with guidance provided by Cabinet at a briefing of 14 July 2022 to uplift the road surface in line with the pavement, replace kerbing and introduce Acco drains (or similar). £275k of this increase is funded through the LTP budget.
13) The cycle shelter element has also been adjusted to account for the construction of a solid concrete base foundation and introduction of lighting to ensure a safe and secure location.
14) The Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has formally been consulted for their decision regarding the variation and have agreed at their meeting of 27.09.22.
15) It should be noted that it is unlikely that any further revisions to the budget will be agreed by Marches LEP.
16) There is a minor increase in cost for High Town existing enhancements to match the spend to deliver the works.

To provide an update on the work of the Cabinet since the meeting of Council held on 21 October, 2022.

Addition of two new polling stations to replace venues that are no longer available